


The Summoned Slaughter

by Drowsy_Salamander



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Cults, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), The Slaughter, can read if you've never read Discworld, dark cultists are the d tier minion, just references at the end, probably can't be read if you've never listened to Magnus Archives, set mid season 4 of magnus but no real spoilers, the Summoning Dark - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:15:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24578908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drowsy_Salamander/pseuds/Drowsy_Salamander
Summary: Statement of Angua von Uberwald regarding her superior's anger management.A retelling of Thud in the Magnus Archives Universe.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 37





	The Summoned Slaughter

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank @AbbyMayHampsen, my wonderful beta! She was such a great help.

“ _Statement of Sargant Angua von Uberwald of the PSNI regarding her superior’s anger management in the month of July 2002. Statement recorded 29th of April 2003_.” Gertrude’s calm voice began.

“ _I suppose I should start this off by saying I know the supernatural is real.” The statement giver’s voice is rather low with a bit of a German accent. “I know the world is full of monsters and those who serve them. I should know, I was one for a long time. You’ve probably got a few statements with me in them. I suppose you could say it was a family tradition but that feels misleading. My family isn’t like the Lukases or some cult, just… Just by the time I was a child, my father was more wolf than man. So, my brother and I were somewhat more inclined to follow that path. It took a while for me to stop. Why? I still don’t know. Maybe I just got sick of spending months living in the forest or maybe one of my victims just looked too familiar to me? I honestly don’t remember but something shifted in me and I knew I wanted no part of the Wolf anymore. I’m fairly certain my brother is still hunting off in Virginia but I knew I didn’t want to Hunt anymore._

_That’s easier to say than do. I’m still a Hunter really, but I like to think I put it to a better use than before. Most police become Hunters; I don’t think it’s often that Hunters become police. I’m still not entirely sure how I ended up in Belfast. I’d been running from, well, everything, for some time. I’d move to a city and then run after a few months. But I stayed in Belfast. I met—I just stayed._

_I suppose I’ve talked about myself enough now; I’ll tell you about Vimes. Detective Chief Inspector Sam Vimes is my superior. A bit more hands on than most officers are, willing to get his hands dirty. Vimes is… he’s a good man. I don’t say that lightly. He’s a bastard, very angry, always grumpy but he’d never mistreat anyone under his care, doesn’t tolerate others doing it either. He’s always getting into trouble with his own superiors over his fight against corruption. He fights for people, the defenceless. Hates unfair things. I feel the need to give this character reference before I begin my story because this is about._

_I don’t know how much you know exactly about the political situation of Belfast, aside from the terrorism, but it’s been getting better. Still tumultuous but improving. So, when Hamcrusher and his group of radicals came on the scene, we were concerned. He was a real fiery type, preaching just on the side of directly inciting violence. He kept stoking tensions, encouraging violence. We were being stretched thin and Vimes hated the man. Hated how he was slowly shattering the peace. Hamcrusher was hiring men to do ‘renovation’ work for him. Him and the rest of his radicals were all living and working out of an old house, but we never saw any work being done to the house. It was strange but no reason to investigate._

_At least until we heard that Hamcrusher had been murdered._

_Vimes and I went to investigate. We met two men before we were allowed in. The first, Helmclever, was a rather nervous young man, looked like a student, uncomfortable to be there, on the verge of a breakdown. He was clearly at the bottom of whatever hierarchy the group had. The other man, Ardent, clearly had far more authority. He was short and had a rather hungry look in his eye, a certain glint that immediately raised my hackles. I knew he wasn’t human in any way that really mattered._

_Ardent was rather reluctant to let us in. We didn’t have a warrant so we did actually need his permission. Still, it was infuriating. We knew Hamcrusher had been killed in that house, Ardent knew that we knew, but he was playing silly buggers with us. Being evasive. Eventually he said we would have to talk to ‘The Council’ and if I didn’t think there was anything weird going on before then, I definitely did at that point. It made them sound like a cult._

_“It’s some council’s decision if I investigate a crime?” Vimes said in an overly controlled voice. “Well Mr. Ardent, I don’t believe that. It’s the Law’s decision. If a crime has been done, then justice will be served whether you and your lot like that or not.”_

_Suffice to say, that argument escalated, but eventually Ardent agreed to let us into the crime scene. We called back for more officers to follow but decided to do an initial overview ourselves. Ardent said he would take us there and so lead us over to a lift. I was surprised by that, the house didn’t seem to be more than three stories, but then the lift went down, underground. I remember my breath catching, because there shouldn’t have been anything below this building._

_But we went down, and when the lift’s doors opened, they opened to darkness. I have good night vision, better than humans and this darkness wasn’t normal. Ardent strode out as though it was no problem. Vimes and I looked at each other before he pulled out his torch. It… didn’t dissolve the darkness like it should’ve. The beam was thin and only illuminated directly in front of it. We were in a tunnel, some mixture of naturally eroded and man-made work. There was no dust, and it didn’t smell like a normal tunnel. I don’t know how keen a normal human’s sense of smell is, but for as long as I can remember, being underground has a certain smell. It’s wet, musty, and cloying. But this tunnel smelt nothing like that. If I strained myself, I could almost smell something like a night time breeze but it was so faint._

_We followed Ardent as best we could but it was a maze down there, tunnels branching and twisting. Very quickly, we were disoriented with no way of knowing where we were. It wasn’t unnaturally twisted, it was just a truly convoluted series of tunnels, and Ardent was taking the most meandering route possible._

_He was simply toying with us._

_I could smell Vimes’ growing anger. This whole thing had set him on edge and now Ardent was being deliberately infuriating. So, at the next fork, when Ardent went left, Vimes took out his baton and knocked down some boards blocking the other route. He turned around and yelled “I wonder what’s down here then,” and charged off. It was a simple provocation of Ardent but it was obvious we weren’t getting anywhere by simply following him._

_I followed him and asked him if he thought this was wise. He just said “No, but I don’t care” and continued on the sealed tunnel. At the end of the tunnel there was a door. A pressure door. My— Carrot’s parents were mine workers, and he knows a lot about mines. He tells me about it sometimes, enough that I could recognise them. But there was something… foreboding about that door. There was something terrible behind it, I could just tell. I could smell the iron of the door but there was also the iron scent of blood. “I wonder what’s behind this door.” Vimes called back to Ardent as loud as possible and reached for it. “_

_Ouch” he swore as his hand brushed the door._

_  
“Sir?” I asked, concerned. _

_“Gashed my hand against a nail.” He said._

_“A nail in an iron door?”_

_“A rivet then.” He kept rubbing his hand._

_Ardent caught back up with us. He was flustered, and kept eyeing the door carefully. “This is an excavation. There are dangers everywhere! You must stay with me.”  
  
“I would be more inclined to do that, if I thought you were taking us directly to the scene of the crime.” Vimes told him.   
  
“We’re nearly there.” Ardent insisted and led us back down the tunnel, away from the door.   
  
I don’t know if he was telling the truth or if he was worried by Vimes charging off but it only took five more minutes of walking to get to the body. Hamcrusher had been shot but there wasn’t enough blood in the tunnel for this to be where he was killed and the wound was older than it should’ve been. There were also some rather conspicuous clues scattered around the tunnel. It was rather obvious that this was a set up. Hamcrusher had been murdered but the Council wanted us to draw a conclusion, probably a conclusion that would have us chasing our tails long enough for them to get out of there. _

_Unfortunately, their tactics worked. We still don’t know who actually killed Hamcrusher. But I think it was just simple infighting though. I’ll spare you the details of the investigation but three days later, the entire lot of them had up and left the city. I don’t know how they managed to escape while the force had been actively watching them. I was too busy investigating the tunnels with my partner, Sally Von Humpeding. I wanted to get behind that door. And we did._

_There were four dead men behind it. Some of the ‘renovation’ workers. They were sinking in the muck, worms already working on their flesh. Their blood splattered everywhere. One of them had managed to crawl up the door. The nails on his hand were torn and there was more blood on his hands. He'd clearly tried to claw at the door, not yet dead. When I looked close back at the door, I saw that he’d written something in his own blood on it. It wasn’t words. The blood was smeared and faded but it looked like a crude drawing of a knife. Sally said it looked more like a recorder or some other wind instrument._

_We called in back up, took the bodies out and dealt with the media circus. They’d been local lads and people were furious. We had to keep things under control but by the time I got back to the station, it was late and I was exhausted but I wasn’t going to get a chance to rest because a lot had happened while I was down there._

_When the group of them had left, Helmclever had been left behind. He’d been brought in and was in a holding cell, but that wasn’t the half of it. Ardent or the Council or someone must’ve been really scared by the investigation or, well in hindsight, I think they were scared of what the dying man had invoked coming after them._

_Anyway, they’d sent people to Mr. Vimes’ home to kill his wife and son. Apparently, Vimes went home at six o’clock only to find three men creeping through his house. One even got into the nursery. I don’t know the details of what exactly happened but two of the men were brought into the station dead. But their bodies weren’t … normal. The only one that was still alive was coughing up a dark, thick liquid that also oozed from his wounds._

_When I came into the station after reporting what Sally and I had found, I saw him. Vimes was covered in that black liquid that must have been the assassins’ blood. He was holding his son tight to his chest and was livid. His wife, Sybil was bustling around the station but was still trembling a little. You can hardly blame him for how furious he was. They’d sent supernatural assassins after his family. It was only through luck that his wife and child weren’t dead._

_Helmclever’s interrogation was odd. Not in an entity way, at least not at first, just social weirdness. The man was a mess, sobbing and sniffling and Vimes was so very angry but couldn’t be angry at him. Not just because he was so pathetic but because he was a prisoner and we do not touch prisoners. Not that we would’ve needed to, Helmclever was ready to spill his guts. He’d always had a passion for niche historical mysteries and had written his History masters on some old blindfold. A 17th century artefact that had been totally lost. It had been used by a cult that worshiped the darkness but had been lost somewhere in Ireland after the cult was attacked. He’d theorised there was some clue as to where it, and the cult, had ended up in their old premises in Belfast. That building is now gone, bombed in the Blitz. Theoretically, though, the cellar and anything else underground should be intact._

_I_ _t was by sheer coincidence that Helmclever encountered the ‘Deep Downers’ as they called themselves. A group who avoided the sun and light in general as much as possible. Some of them had never even seen the sun, spending all their time underground and only going out at night. They hired Helmclever to do jobs that require going out into the daylight, like fetching groceries. He brought some of his research with him to the job and Ardent found it. A month later, the whole lot of them moved over to Belfast. Hamcrusher was sent out to obfuscate and distract. Violence and tensions can make someone as blind as darkness. They hired teams of builders to find any clue of where the blindfold was. And one team found it._ _A map and vague notes on where they were going. The builders were killed for it._

_I… I still remember what Helmclever said. He said “They… They… when they killed the builders, one was not all the way dead and, and, and we could hear him hammering on the door with his fists, and I stood in the tunnel and listened to him die and I wished him dead so that the noise would stop but when it did, it went on in my head. I could’ve helped, but I was scared of the Dark guards who have no souls and for that, the Summoned Slaughter will take mine.”_

_“What’s the Summoned Slaughter?” Vimes leaned closer._

_“_ _It, it, it comes in darkness and in vengeance and in possession. It is the violence of righting a wrong with no care for those caught in the crossfire. Once summoned, it is relentless. The Deep Downers are scared. They can feel it coming for them.” As Helmclever spoke, the lights in the cell flickered like the wiring was faulty but it wasn’t. It had been serviced just two months ago._

_“_ _This is all mystic stuff.” Vimes said “I don’t believe it.”_

_Helmclever was calm and so still when he replied “I do. It’s in this room right now.” That was when the lights failed._

_The darkness surged, more like a liquid than a simple absence of light. The last thing I saw was Mr. Vimes lunging for Helmclever. I fumbled at my belt for my torch and dropped it. I couldn’t see in this darkness; it was almost a pressure and I could smell that night air smell again but it was tinged with blood. “Angua, light a god damn torch!” Vimes snapped while I fumbled. I took too long to find the torch again and by the time I lit it, the darkness had shifted back to being normal._

_And Helmclever was dead. Vimes’ hand was still on his shoulder._

_The coroner declared his death a heart attack but I knew, and I’m sure Vimes knew too. This was hardly a mere heart issue. The man wasn’t even 26._

_We still had his copy of the map the Deep Downers had killed for. It led to the Burren in south west Ireland. We knew that was where they were headed and we were going to catch these murderers. We got permission to pursue them across the border and assistance from local law enforcement. The whole time we were travelling, Vimes was snappish._

_It was such a desolate landscape. Nothing but limestone for miles. One of the local officers with us shared a little tidbit Cromwell apparently said upon arriving here. “No tree to hang a man, no water to drown a man, and no soil to bury a man.” I doubt he actually ever said that, but it was accurate. There was just stone, eroded with deep channels and caves, maybe some grass or bushes, but it was so empty. The birds overhead seemed to want to avoid the region. It was just so dead and it felt like it would go on forever, that I would spend the rest of my life wandering through this empty, rocky space. But at the same time, I could practically feel the power of the underground rivers, pulsing through caverns._

_We knew the Deep Downers were in those caves, searching for the blindfold. I’d read Helmclever’s notes and there’s one account of what happened. The Darkness cult had gone down into the caves with several victims. There was some ceremony involving the blindfold but before it was completed, a group of people burst in and set fire to everything. I don’t know how they could really do so in a wet, underground cave but that’s what Helmclever claimed happened. I can’t imagine how the Deep Downers thought the blindfold could’ve survived such destruction, but I wasn’t hunting for the blindfold. I was the most useful in tracking them. There weren’t any obvious trails but I could smell them._

_We split into smaller groups to cover as much ground as possible. I was with Sally and Vimes. I could tell we were getting close, it's an instinct you can never really lose. Knowing how close your prey is. Normally, I just let myself slip a bit back into being a Hunter. It can be helpful but while we were searching, I could tell I wasn’t the only… non-human there. Vimes just smelt… wrong. I can’t explain it. The bloody, night scent was just faintly clinging to him. Sally took me to the side and mentioned it quietly to me. That Vimes wasn’t unaffiliated anymore. I don’t know Sally von Humpeding’s past but I know she was seeped in the End. She knew as well I did that nothing about this investigation was normal. We should’ve been keeping a closer eye on Vimes._

_While we were talking, he'd found a swallow hole that led down to the caves. I turned back just in time to see him jump down. For a second, I was too shocked to move but then I sprinted over. The hole had two streams flowing into it, making the rock wet and slippery and it went deep. At the bottom, I could see an underground river filled with rocks and rapids. In the smashing current, I could just barely see Vimes swimming. It didn’t look natural, more like some vicious animal in his skin was stopping him from drowning. And then he was gone, swallowed by the dark cave._

_Sally and I looked at each other. There was no way we could go down there. The drop had to be at least twenty feet and into raging rapids at that. There was no way to climb either, we had no equipment for this. We regrouped with the rest of the squad but while reassessing our plan, I felt a deep unease. I knew that everything was going to go to shit and that the ‘Summoned Slaughter’ had latched onto Vimes. It was going to make him something he’d never wanted to be. I vowed that I would make sure he never did anything he would regret. A fight between a Hunt and a Slaughter avatar would be brutal but I was confident I would win._

_We eventually found a different, safer cave entrance that would lead us to the Deep Downers. The cave was large and even though we had to run through water, that hardly slowed us. We could hear the sounds of fighting coming up ahead. In that natural darkness, I could see Sally and she nodded at me. She’d made the same choice I had. The cave we emerged into was hardly well lit but it was easy to see into._

_Vimes was there. Blood coated him, both his own and others. His clothes were torn and soaked. In one hand was a knife he must have grabbed from one of the Dark guards, in his other hand was a sledgehammer that he’d grabbed from the mining equipment that was strewn across the cave. He wielded it as though it was a light as a walking cane. He was just decimating those guards who came after him, fighting with such a demented ferocity that I hope to never see again. Those few guards who weren’t fighting him or lying on the floor, came at us. I ignored them, too busy readying myself to fight my boss. Huddling as far away from him as possible was what I assume was the Council. They were just a group of scared old men._

_Before I could intervene, I saw something extraordinary. Vimes dispatched the last of the cultists with weapons and had surged over to the Council. He raised the weapons above his head, ready to bring them down upon the unarmed group but then he stopped. He stood above them, weapons poised, rocking back and forth. His muscles strained with the effort of not attacking the helpless, old men in front of him. I could feel the struggle destroying him between the enhanced rage and… I don’t actually know how he stopped it._

_I knocked him down and pinned him to the ground. I just knew that struggle would destroy him. He went unconscious, eyes rolled back._

_The rest of the squad was busy apprehending everyone so Sally and I carried him out of the cave. He was so still; it was like carrying a corpse. I almost wanted to check his breathing, just in case. Before we went into the cave, we’d radioed the rescue team so when we came out, they were able to take Vimes into a helicopter to the nearest hospital. Sally went with him, I had to finish the hu--investigation. We got it all wrapped up, gathered all the evidence, brought all the injured out and handcuffed all the cultists still in the cave. Ardent wasn’t amongst them. I don’t like to think about what that weasel is doing now._

_Once that was all done, I drove down to the hospital Vimes was in. According to Sally, he was in a coma. The doctors didn’t know why. They had finished running tests an hour ago. Sybil was sitting next to Vimes’ bed, holding their son. When she saw me walk in, she gave me a big smile and started comforting me. But then we settled into silence and just watched him._

_I needed to make sure… I’m not sure what but I had to be there when he woke up, just in case. After about an hour, he started stirring. Just shifting in his bed nothing major but then-- I smelt it more than saw it but out of the wrist on the hand that had touched the door, out of it came something. It looked like a heat haze but just concentrated to the air above his wrist but the smell was overwhelming. That blood and darkness, it was everywhere. If I’d been standing, I would’ve staggered. It was like someone had dropped a scent bomb and then just as suddenly as it started, the smell was gone. Vimes woke up._

_The look he gave Sybil was so tender, I felt I had to excuse myself. I kept an eye on him after he left hospital and came back to work but he was untouched somehow. The Summoned Slaughter had just left him. I don’t know how. Sally thinks it was something to do with his love for his family but I’m not sure. The way he stopped the Slaughter from killing those men, maybe it was sheer stubbornness that turned him back from becoming an avatar._

_That’s why I’m here. Like I said, I’m no stranger to the supernatural. I was taught about Robert Smirke when I was child, I know that I witnessed something incredible.” Angua stopped. “_

_So that’s about it I suppose_.” Angua said and then there was the sound of rustling.

“ _I’ll leave then_.”

“ _I suppose that is about all_.” Gertrude said.

_“Tell me though, did you ever find the blindfold?” “_

_Not that I heard of._ ” In the recording a chair scraped the floor painfully.

“ _Thank you for your statement._ ” Gertrude dismissed and the tape clicked.

“ _Well_ ,” Gertrude’s voice continued in her after-statement. “ _That was certainly interesting. I would consider sending Emma to investigate the caves but it sounds as though anything that was once there is now long since gone. Hmm. To begin, Ms. Von Uberwald was correct in thinking she’s appeared in our Archive before. It’s good to put a name to the creature in statement 9940721 and 9961105._

_More pressing, is the activity of the People’s Church of the Divine Host. It was rather easy to find records of Mr. Hamcrusher, unusual surnames are so convenient. He was a member of the Church and seems to have been rather highly ranked. If the blindfold they were looking for was the one used in the 1702 then I doubt it survived. The agents of the Desolation were rather thorough in disrupting that attempt. Still the fact that such a large delegation of the Dark were willing to try to fetch it is concerning. They seem to be getting desperate. I’ll have to keep an eye on their attempts to get a ritual up and running, even if it seems to be floundering. I give it another decade before they become too much of a priority. Still, it never hurts to be prepared._

_That last part, while not particularly relevant, is deeply intriguing. Someone on the path to avatarhood who manages to not simply slow the process but completely reject the entity? This warrants further investigation. I may take a trip to visit Mr. Vimes myself, but until then, there are other matters to attend to_.”

The tape ran out and Jon leant back in his chair. That was a lot but it made him hopeful. If one Slaughter avatar could turn away from the fears, why not Melanie? He was going to get that bullet out of her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thud had to get condensed a lot, huh? Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
